1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a front loading disc player.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When positioning a disc to be played back on the turntable of a front loading disc player, the disc is usually delivered in a first direction parallel to the disc carrying surface of the turntable and a second direction normal to the first direction. For delivering a disc in those directions, a conventional front loading disc player comprises, as shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings, a carrier 2 movable in the first direction (the direction of the arrow Y and the direction opposite thereto) between a projection position out of a player housing 1 and a retracted position in the player housing 1, a tray 4 movably disposed on the carrier 2 and movable in the second direction for carrying a disc 3, a carrier driver means (not shown) for moving the carrier 2 with respect to the player housing 1, and a tray driver means (not shown) for moving the tray 4 with respect to the carrier 2.
In operation, when the carrier 2 is projected out of the player housing 1, the disc 3 is placed on the tray 4 on the carrier 2, and then the carrier 2 is retracted into the player housing 1 and the tray 4 is moved toward a turntable 5 until the disc 3 is placed on the turntable 5. For retrieving the disc that has been played back, a process which is a reverse of the above operation is carried out.
The above front loading disc player is designed for playing back one disc at a time. For playing back a plurality of discs successively, disc ejecting and loading prosedures have to be performed to exchange the discs, during which the playback operation is interrupted.
There has been developed a front loading disc player to solve the above problem. The developed front loading disc player includes, as shown in FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings, two juxtaposed trays 7, 8 individually movable in one plane for carrying and delivering discs, respectively, and a playback means 9 including a turntable and an optical pickup and selectively movable between the trays 7, 8 for cooperation therewith. This front loading disc player is capable of successively playing back two discs without ejecting one of the discs after it has been played back. While the disc on the tray 7 is being played back on the turntable, the disc on the other tray 8 can be replaced with another disc. Therefore, by repeating such disc replacements alternately on the trays 7, 8, a number of discs can successively be played back uninterruptedly.
One problem with the front loading disc player shown in FIG. 2 is that the relative positional relationship between the optical pickup and the turntable may easily vary because the playback means 9 including the optical pickup is reciprocally moved between the two trays 7, 8.